Let's Talk: About The "Grave" Games

Hello and welcome back to Let’s Talk. Today, I wanted to take some time to talk about the FrostGrave/Ghost Archipelago/StarGrave games and system. This is going to be a bit negative but I do want to say that I really like Ghost Archipelago and I plan on getting in some StarGrave games at some point.
So, why don’t I love the X-Grave system? What is it about it that makes me not enjoy it as much as others seem to? I think there’s a few reasons that I can point to. 

 

Powers Cost Health:

You see, I’m okay with this for the Heritors in Ghost Archipelago. For whatever reason, I think it fits, and the thing is that you don’t HAVE to use your Heritor Powers. I’ve always looked at them as something you pull out when you need to. Need to stop a model from getting too close while you snag some treasure? It might be worth the risk. Have you finally worn down that enemy Heritor or big bad monster and need to make sure to put it down? There’s a power for that and it’s probably worth it. But what is it about the spells in FrostGrave that I don’t like? Well, it’s because you lose health if you fail, and only if you fail, further punishing you for using your magic. Magic is dicey in FrostGrave, which has never really jived with me, because it’s a game about wizards. You’re suppose to be throwing around spells and stuff. That’s the name of the game. And yet, magic is so risky, and wizards have far lower health than Heritors, it makes me not want to use spells. And yet, you need to use spells to gain more XP, so you can improve your characters. And you need to improve your characters so you can lesser that risk.

When it comes to StarGrave, I think we have the best the system has been, as not every power costs health, just the more powerful ones. I like this, as I can keep those powerful abilities in my back pocket, so to speak, and choose to take that risk when I need to, not every time I use anything. I know that this all boils down to Risk Versus Reward but it doesn’t feel like that with the original FrostGrave. It’s also hard to swallow when you can’t give your main characters healing items to start with, so you can off-set the cost of health you have to pay.

 

Lack Of Customization and Main Character Focus:

When it comes to this one, it’s not that you can’t customize your leaders, it’s that you can’t customize anything else. The game is completely focused on around the main character, the leader of your group, and offers a little bit of stuff for the second in command, but it depends on the game. In FrostGrave, your apprentice is an interior copy of your wizard and the only things you can really change is the gear they carry. Ghost Archipelago is better, as there’s tons of difference between Heritor powers and Warden spells, making for a much more customized core group. StarGrave is good, too, in that same way, and you can really go all own with filling gaps in what you want to do. However, that’s all you can really customize. For example, I’d love to give my troopers shotguns in StarGrave. It just seems cool to me, to have a bunch of dudes with shotguns. But I can’t do that. I can’t even find a single crew member that starts with a shotgun. Those are for Captains and XO only, when you start. As the systems are random, you can’t really buy them, either. And that’s another thing that factors into all of this. You can’t fully equip anyone exactly how you want. Want to give your leader a healing potion? Well, better hope you find one. Want to have a crewmen start with a different weapon? Too bad.

And this factors into my next point, that the games are entirely focused on your main character and their second in command. It’s all about them. You don’t even have to make rolls for the free crewmen or warband members if they get removed during a game, unless they’re holding something special, and then it’s really to see if you lose that thing. And that’s what sucks. You don’t want to invest in these “lesser people” because the game makes them disposable. They’re just bubblewrap for your leader and second in command, to protect them and to help them accomplish their goals of stealing treasure. The best way to put it is that the game feels a like like chess, with your King and Queen, the various specialist crew being the Bishops and Knights and the like, while your free crew are the Pawns. Honestly, if this is how the game was presented, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it.

Before you say “well, you can play other games for that customization” I’d like to point out that many of those games are not as mechanically easy as the X-Grave system(s) and they’re usually nowhere near as popular.

 

Too Many Missions/Scenarios/Etc:

This one is a minor complaint but it feels like every time I look at one of the expansions for the game, there’s a ton of new missions. Like, six or more. And the core books come with a lot of them, I think seven is the lowest from Ghost Archipelago. And almost all of these missions require specialized terrain, models, or something else. There’s very few more basic missions, ones that don’t require complex terrain or buying more minis. Give us something more than missions. Give us new rules, or new ways to play the same missions we are already prepared for. New missions feels a little cheap. I don’t mind campaign books, because you’re going to need new missions for that, but I do feel like there’s a push to sell more minis to people with the missions. And that can be okay but when your first campaign calls for EIGHT of a new monster, I can see what you’re doing. It just feels like the only creativity is being drawn into making more missions, to the exclusion of anything else. I do understand that it’s not easy to come up with things that don’t unbalance the game or require a lot of play testing, as opposed to just cooking up a new mission. It just feels like that’s all we really get from the expansions and the like.

FrostGrave 2nd Edition has 20 core missions, while Ghost Archipelago has 8. With each expansion of FrostGrave providing at least six new missions, that's an insane amount of missions to play. Sure, most of the ones I have include campaigns or mini campaigns, but that means that you end up with so many missions, you're probably never going to play them all.

 A Lack Of Diversity:

No, I don’t mean diversity in humans, as that can easily be solved with paint jobs and buying minis from different companies. No, what I mean is that there’s no rules for dwarves, elves, or anything else. And that’s a shame. There’s so much you can do with this, so much that can improve your world but it’s not there. And it sucks. It is a bit of a mixed bag, as it does make it easy to just grab any mini you like and throw it on the board. But it also makes it easy to model for advantage. For example, I got a decent group of Mouselings that I could use to make a Warband for FrostGrave. Since they’re so small, trying to hit them at range is going to be hard. So, an easy way to cheat. Or at least abuse the system. And adding in rules for different races could be a great thing to work into supplements and make them a little more interesting.

I also feel like StarGrave could really have fun with new races, as you could give players that ability to make races, not just pick them. You could really let people match their collection or make crews that have a lot more flavor to them.

And it’s not even the humanoid races that are out there, there’s things like centaurs, who are going to require a bit of some work to fit into the rules. But they could add a lot of flavor to a group. And there’s a lot of other races that can do the same. While we have rules for having dogs, and some other summoned or manufactured things, there’s a lot of other animals that we could have be part of crews.

With all of this said, I do like playing Ghost Archipelago, and do want to give StarGrave a real chance. I’d even like to run through the Thaw of the Lich King campaign for FrostGrave with a friend or two. So, I don’t want you to think that I’m coming from this of a place of hate or dislike. I do like the ideas, I just wish it was better. And, yes, I’ve been working on some modifications to the games to fit my tastes. It just feels like there could have been improved on its own.